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Month: February 2017

I grew up in a household full of music lovers. My family and I can appreciate different music genres. Whether my grandparents would play Frank Sinatra music or my parents with their Bon Jovi playlist, everybody in the family can definitely jam with any song. But, what they don’t understand is my participation in music festivals and reliance on Spotify. That’s how differences emerge in my family when it comes to relationship with music. Some older family members haven’t realized yet that technology and music can change a generation.

Purpose of Music

My grandparents play their favorite songs to remember the good old days. Meanwhile, Mom and Dad just want to chill with songs familiar to them. I, on the other hand, want to feel the beat and experience it live in a concert or a music festival. The best part about music festivals is like listening to my Spotify playlist in a whole new level. Going to music festivals makes me forget all my problems.

Music in the Age of Technology

Technology has a big role on how new artists and music festivals become more and more popular. Futurity managed to gain some insights from a music expert, the University of Arizona’s Fred Fox School of Music’s assistant professor Brian Moon. Here are factors that make technology dominate the music scene:

Social Media

Some music festivals are available for live streaming on Facebook. When a person sees how fun the experience is, he or she would probably wait for the next event and finally join the party.

High-Tech Equipment

Witnessing music festivals nowadays is like being in an ultra-modern concert. The camera equipment used are high-end, giving the crowd a better glimpse of the artists in different perspectives. Some festival-goers even buy special listening systems. For example, Doppler Labs launched innovative earbuds that connect to your smartphone through Bluetooth. The magic starts when you can control the volume and ambient noise through the phone which transmits the signal to the earbuds. With this, you can focus more on the music, not the crowd’s noise. Waiting in line is even a breeze in this generation because some music festivals give wristbands that can be simply scanned as you enter the venue.

Mobile Apps

To be more specific, we’re talking about music streaming apps. In the past, we rely on radio and MTV. That means we only see the most popular ones. With Spotify, Pandora and other mobile music services, new artists get popular fast. With the fast rate of emerging artists, music events also increase. If Beyonce, Rihanna and Britney Spears were the only ones who can have saleable concerts in previous years, new artists can now sing on a huge stage in front of a big crowd through music festivals.

Final Thoughts

Yes, technology can be unhealthy in the new generation. People tend to rely too much on their smartphones and other gadgets. Some menial activities like deciding where to eat turned into mobile apps. But, technology makes people closer and experience things in a more exciting way. In the past, we still have to wait for our favorite song to come up on the radio or TV. We also needed to anticipate for the next album of our favorite artist and buy it. Now, we can listen to new songs for free thanks to the power of technology.